One of the sports facing the greatest setbacks when trying to have a 2020 season is wrestling. Solon High School’s wrestling athletes have been putting in a lot of offseason workouts with the lifting coach Cody Coley in hopes that they will get a chance to compete this season.

 The OHSAA has cleared the sport of wrestling to begin for 2020-2021 despite the virus, but with some new protocols in place.

OHSAA plans eliminate pre and post-match handshakes and eliminate post-match handshakes with coaches to try to eliminate as much contact as possible.

Along with that, wrestlers must wear face coverings when not actively competing or warming up. 

Solon junior wrestler Caleb Sharpley, a team captain, shares another protocol.

“Before every practice,  we get our temperatures taken before we can enter the wrestling room.’’

With all of these changes trying to schedule practices has become  harder.

Solon senior Lavelle McKnight gives some insight into the practices. 

’’We haven’t had a full team practice yet, but as of right now the practice isn’t that much different. There are only five people allowed in the wrestling room.’’ 

Because of all of these new changes being put in place with the coronavirus, it’s leaving some of the athletes questioning whether or not they feel safe.

‘’I feel somewhat safe with wrestling, I mean I’ve only been doing it for two  weeks, and I haven’t shown any symptoms,’’ Sharpley said.

McKnight has faced the challenge of his parents being conflicted with the number of virus cases going up, so they might not let him continue to wrestle.

“I was really looking forward to trying a new sport for my senior year, but because of the virus and the cases numbers rising tremendously, my mother is putting a lot of pressure on me whether to continue wrestling or not because of the higher risks,” McKnight said.

The coronavirus numbers are increasing at faster rates every single day causing the wrestling team to be put into quarantine until Dec. 9. Sharpley said. 

By having the team in quarantine the coaches are hoping when the practices do resume with the safety guidelines established by the OHSAA and the CDC the spread amongst the wrestlers will be little to none. 

“I just hope we can start our wrestling season ASAP because they already canceled a couple[of] tournaments and they aren’t rescheduling those,’’ Sharpley said.